Remaining Light
by Blessed Are The Sick
Summary: The brands of the l'Cie have long disappeared, but, as Lightning finds out, some scars aren't always visible, and don't always heal easily. Postgame. OneShot. FangLight friendship.


_a/n: so, uh, yeah Fang's alive. how? she just is. don't worry about it for now. _

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**/Remaining Light**

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_"Have you ever felt like you're just...out of touch with the rest of the world? That's what I feel like, constantly. Society's marching in one direction, and I'm walking in another. Except, instead of using my feet, I'm walking on my hands."_

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Evening shifts didn't sit well with Lightning. She wasn't afraid of the dark or anything; she'd gotten over that before Mom died. And, in fact, watching the sun ignite the reflective tips of skyscrapers as it settled below the horizon was oddly comforting. Dusk as a whole was a little _too _comforting, especially in New Eden, where, at night, beasts and terrors prowled the outskirts.

Lightning watched as the bulk of her comrades march towards the city, back to their families, to wives and kids, and mothers and fathers. With them gone, Lightning was left with a small, but skilled contingent of soldiers under her heel. She figured the higher-ups always picked her for evening duty so that most of their soldiers didn't have to work with the _l'Cie; _better to keep her in the dark, where she belonged.

"Major Farron?" One of the soldiers approached her, his voice shaking. "D-do you want us ― "

Lightning held up her hand, interrupting what was sure to a barely comprehensible stream of anxious, hesitant gibberish. "Keep searching," she said, noticing the light of the recruit's rifle rattling nervously against the darkness. "You're going to be patrolling with a flashlight and a bottle of downers if you can't keep that thing steady, recruit."

The recruit nodded, bowing one, two, three times in quick succession before returning to his patrol. Lightning thought of telling these idiots that, despite what PSICOM told them, she couldn't incinerate them with a glance; she couldn't summon Pulse-beasts with a flick of her finger; and she couldn't turn people into l'Cie. Hell, she couldn't even turn people into l'Cie when she _was _a l'Cie. It wasn't _her _fault that Cocoon fell from the sky. She wasn't a monster.

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_"You guys, you're the lucky ones. Me? I can't forget nothin'. I've got five hundred years worth of regrets and fifteen million worth of lives to carry on my back."_

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"Hey, 'bout time you got in."

Fang lifted a glass of rum towards Lightning, downed it in one gulp, and placed it on the table among dozens of other cups. Ever since she'd gotten back, Fang had found a kindred spirit in all things alcohol; wine, beer, rum, there was nothing Fang's body couldn't take. Girl had the alcohol tolerance of an Adamantoise.

"Everyone else already went to bed," she gestured towards Hope, who was sleeping soundly on a couch opposite of Fang. "Waited up all evening for you, that one. We had a little drinkin' contest to pass the time. Boy went out like a light after two glasses."

Lightning raised an eyebrow. Fang laughed, holding her hands up in surrender. "Kidding, kidding." She poured another glass. "Seems like you're in a right mood, love. Care to talk about it?"

"Not really." Shaking her shoes off in the doorway, Lightning laid her gunblade by the door, grabbed a blanket from the closet and draped it over Hope. Then, she rounded on Fang. "I hope you're not expecting Serah to clean those up for you."

"Was hoping."

"Think again." Lightning eyed the bottle in Fang's grip, smirking. "You've got quite a stock for someone who's lacking a job."

Fang shrugged. "Ain't too many options for a gal with a giant l'Cie brand across her arm. Suppose I could turn myself into PSICOM, become a test subject. They might throw a coin or two my way if I drop to my knees and beg."

"You'd be surprised what folks neglect to notice when you throw some decent clothes on. Works wonders."

"It's the dry season, love. You should count yourself lucky I'm not walking around in my knickers." Fang threw a sly wink towards Lightning. "Or unlucky, depending on how you look at the situation." After seeing Lightning's eyes roll, Fang shrugged, and knocked back another glass. "Besides, the only folks in the dark about our lot are rottin' beneath our feet. It doesn't matter if you're branded or not to them. Once a l'Cie, always a l'Cie."

The observation wasn't exactly breaking news, but still, Lightning couldn't help feeling a dull pain as she took in Fang's words. "Tell me about it."

"You can't let it get under your skin, love. If they're still gonna think of us as monsters, let 'em."

Lightning glanced at the window, over miles of urban sprawl and farmland towards Cocoon's distant shadow, its spire gently frosted with moonlight. "Can you blame them?"

"Suppose not. The Sanctum's been tellin' them what's what for so long, they don't know any other ― "

"No, that's not what I meant." Lightning dropped down onto the couch beside Hope, and gently stroked his hair. She didn't have to worry about waking him; another Cocoon could slam into Pulse's surface, and he wouldn't raise a peep. "...what if...what if we _deserve _it? I mean, one way or another, we're the guys that sparked off this whole chain of events." She gripped Hope's hand. "We're not the same as them. Not anymore."

Silence fell between the two women, punctured by the occasional, hard _clank _of Fang's glasses slamming against the table. Lightning watched as Fang knocked back cup after cup, and, for a moment, wondered if Fang had finally gotten too drunk to discern one word from the other. But, Fang didn't _get _drunk; and, right on que, as if to prove Lightning's point, she clapped her hands together, and gave a deep sigh. A focused, unusually calm light flickered through her eyes.

"Let me tell you something about being different, missy," Fang said, mulling her thoughts over as she rubbed her lips together. "when Vanille and me finally got out of that overgrown labyrinth, we didn't have a clue about where to go, or what to do. Now, most of them Cocoon yuppies didn't pay no mind to us, save for a few. Some of 'em were lookin' at us like we were out of minds, and the rest were hootin' and hollarin' like we were about to give 'em a show. So, I dealt with it how I usually did these type of things."

Lightning smiled. "Yelling and threats?"

"Damn straight. I wasn't gonna let 'em make sport outta Vanille. I told those wankers to piss off before I broke my foot off in their arses." Fang shook her head. "But Vanille was stronger than I was. While I was shootin' my mouth off, she took it all with a smile. Didn't matter what anyone said."

After a deep, soothing breath, Fang continued. "Vanille knew who she was. Didn't matter whether she thought she was normal, different, or in-between, Vanille knew who she was, and what she stood for. As long as she believed that, there wasn't nothin' those people could say to rattle her." Fang smirked. "Of course, a few harsh words were small potatoes compared to what Vanille had to own up to, but still."

"All of that hoping and believing still didn't stop Cocoon from dropping out of the sky," Lightning said.

"There ain't nothin' we could've done to stop that, not one damn thing, and you know it. If those fal'Cie hadn't chose us, then I'd either be sittin' here with some other girlie, or our ashes would all be floatin' in the wind by now."

Lightning smirked. "You make it sound so easy. I can't just filter those people out with a flick of a switch, Fang. It's not that simple."

"It ain't about easy. It's about how you handle it." Fang nodded towards Hope. "He still has nightmares about the Fall, about facing all those Pulse-beasts and monsters, about finding his mum and dad's corpses being dumped into the morgue outside town. You see him breakin' down every time his eyes pass over the Spire? It's painful, yeah, but you gotta move on sometime. What's done is done."

Lightning spied one of Vanille's bracelets locked around Fang's arm. "You're one to talk."

Fang raised an eyebrow, caught the direction of Lightning's gaze, and shrugged. "Hey, ain't none of us perfect. You, me, Sazh. Hell, all of us, we all gotta take our sins and slip-ups along with us. The difference is whether you carry 'em along with you, or throw 'em out and trip over 'em all over again."

"And which one are you doing?"

Smiling, Fang filled up another glass. "Me? I'm still packing."

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_"...in the end, what we think of ourselves is what matters most. Those people, they'll always hate us, no matter what we say, but at least we'll die knowing that we did the right thing."_

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_For once, Lightning was assigned a daytime shift; and, even more surprising, it happened to be smack dab in the middle of the city. Folks strolled through the Market District with smiles on their faces, paying no mind to the former l'Cie sitting in shade of an old, broken-down water tower. Her arms crossed, Lightning watched the bustling activity warily, waiting for someone's eyes to wander towards the l'Cie, and scuttle away in a panic, knocking over a pedestrian or two in the process.

She noticed one guy walking through the crowds; well, limping really. A dirty, matted rug of black hair hung past his ears, and, hanging from his neck, a white passcard with the _Palamecia's _triple-headed arrow etched into it. After escaping the absolute hell that was Cocoon, he'd been thrown out onto Pulse with nothing more than the rags covering his body and a pat on the back. People passing him by stopped to stare at the gashes across his skin, or the empty space between his left ring finger and thumb. The guy? He couldn't care less. He walked past them, and, oddly enough, looked up into the sun and smiled.

Of course, these days, getting off Cocoon was reason enough to smile, whether lacking digits or not. But still, he piqued Lightning's curiousity.

_"It ain't about easy. It's about how you handle it."_

Fang's words rattled through Lightning's head, spurring her out of her daze. She looked at her hands, and then down her entire body; everything was accounted for. That was it. If PSICOM, the Guardian Corps, and every soul on the face of Pulse wanted to hate her, fine. She wasn't going to let it ruin her day.

She took a deep breath, and stepped out into the light.

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**END/**


End file.
